Michael Mancuso/The TimesCadwalader Park Pump House, located in the park at the corner of West State Street and Parkside Avenue across from Trenton High West, at left in background). The pump house, which is a small dark green structure, is located between the tennis court and a baseball field off the asphalt path in the park.

While some have dismissed claims of skirting state bidding laws as a fabrication by a former Trenton employee, even Mayor Tony Mack concedes that a whistleblower’s allegations of underhanded business as usual in City Hall could be true.

In a wrongful termination suit, former recreation department employee Maria Richardson says she was pressured into processing illegal “splintered” invoices for the demolition and reconstruction of a pump house in Cadwalader Park.

Under state law, the city must solicit bids through a “request for proposal” for any project costing more than $17,500. The local public contracts law also requires the city to gather at least three price quotes, less formal than an actual bid, for projects costing more than $1,750.

The rules could not be more straightforward and solid.

Yet, in several recent city projects, there appears to have been a fracturing of the law’s intent — and the work. As Fair reported, New Hope, Pa., contractor Kris D. Remodeling submitted three separate proposals for the pump house project; one totaled $17,400, just $100 below the public bidding threshold. The three proposals added up to $37,500 — well above the threshold.

City records show the company also submitted splintered invoices for three other projects with total costs exceeding the thresholds for bidding or solicitation of quotes.

Fair also found several red flags, including designation of the pump house demolition and reconstruction as an emergency situation — in which bidding rules are suspended to allow immediate attention to a public safety matter — despite the fact that proposals for the work were submitted more than two weeks before it was declared an emergency.
In fact, well before it was deemed an emergency by Trenton-based Todd Geter Architects, the project was already under way.

These instances do not seem to indicate shoddy business practices. They appear, rather, to be calculated, chronic means of getting around state laws. It is a situation that cries out for thorough investigation by the Mercer County prosecutor’s office.

Discussing the matter last week with The Times editorial board, Mayor Mack acknowledged there might have been lapses.

“Everybody who works in government knows you have to get three bids and you have to go through the whole procurement process of awarding contracts,” he said. “And that’s what we do.”